Lisa Curtis

Frequent tags

Related countries

Disruptions

GIS Expert Lisa Curtis analyses America's economic, security and political relationships with India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and other nations of South Asia. She is the director of the Indo-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS).

Previously, she was the director for South and Central Asia at the National Security Council, and before that she was a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C.

Ms. Curtis has testified before Congress on more than a dozen occasions on topics related to India, Pakistan, radical jihadism and America’s image abroad. She co-chaired the independent Pakistan Policy Working Group, which published a report in September 2008 with recommendations on how the new administration should engage an unsteady Pakistan.

Ms. Curtis has been quoted or cited by dozens of news publications. Her commentary has appeared in The Washington Times, National Review Online, FoxNews.com and National Public Radio Online, as well in such South Asian publications as The Mint, an Indian daily, and The News, a Pakistani daily.

Before joining Heritage in August 2006, Ms Curtis was a member of the professional staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for three years. She was in charge of South Asia issues for the chairman at the time, Senator Richard Lugar.

From 2001 to 2003, she was the White House-appointed senior adviser to the assistant secretary of state for South Asian affairs, tracking India-Pakistan relations. She worked as an analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency in the late 1990s.

Ms. Curtis also served abroad in the Foreign Service in the mid-1990s, when she was assigned to the US embassies in Pakistan and India. She has been part of official missions to the region, including a Commerce Department-led delegation to initiate the U.S.-India High Technology Working Group in November 2002 and the U.S. delegation to the International Donors Conference in Pakistan to raise funds for earthquake victims in November 2005.

In 1996, Ms Curtis received the State Department’s Meritorious Honor Award for her role as embassy point person in a year-long, four-nation endeavor to free hostages held by militants in Kashmir.

She is from Fort Wayne, Indiana and received a bachelor's degree in economics from Indiana University in 1990.